"Self- Portrait" – A Study of the 'Self':

combination of the two fields and the research method presented here shows a way to the investigation
of the 'self', describes a behavioural model and offers tools.
The interpretative process does not intend to provide clear cut answers (in fact, there are none) nor give
explanations. The interpretation gives meaning to existing situations. The interpretation is a rewarding
process, the reward of which is chiefly in being inside the process, the pleasure that one gets from the
process of exposure, the hidden meanings. Elkad – Lehman (2006) describes this as magic. I present it
in my research as a state in which one can see the person and his products as an endless resource for
research. And the complex and combined investigation presented here can be considered as a healing
and empowering process.
To Sum up – My Story
In this research I show how I experience this process in all its stages and complexities. As a creator /
researcher I enlist the two disciplines of art and qualitative research and combine them in a unique
manner with the intention to present a broad and profound way for the investigation of the 'self'. I have
identified a potential in the phenomenon of painting a self - portrait, and at the same time the question of
searching for the self – which began in the portrait paintings – grew and became stronger. Thus I found
myself to be the 'guinea pig' in the process of investigating the 'self', in creating a visual and verbal life
story, as an additional investigative model in the expanding research genre of Art- based research.
The assumption is that people tell stories, that people have stories that narrative research focuses on
life narratives (Shkedi, 2003). Bruner ( ׂ2002)
says that we need to tell ourselves stories to know who
we are. Researchers and psychologists claim that man learns about himself through life stories
construct and reconstruct himself, and about the world.
I have described the various phenomena that take place in this research as metaphors. I continue by
saying that through the painting of a self - portrait – the act and the product, and via the interpretative
processes that exist in this investigation – an attempt has been made to tell a life story as well as to
create it. This is similar to life stories that the researcher collects via personal interviews. Here I, as a
subject, interview myself, first via the mirror and later through the interpretative reading of my paintings.
Gudmundsdottir (1996) says that people use the narrative way as a kind of heuristic tool, a tool to
observe one's self. It enables us to understand who we are where we are going in our life.
From this we can deduce that all that was done in this research, intentionally or not, points at a
therapeutic way. The objective of the research here is to suggest a therapeutic way, not in the sense of
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